#;;yapping

unsolicited art/writing feedback where negative feedback IS allowed, focus on fiction as separate from reality, no politics/loaded philosophy about morality, questions are not considered displays of phobia, no purity checking, kink-friendly minus a few.

giving your character tropes can sometimes be a good way to start moving beyond self inserts or self gratification ocs (unless that's your style) im an author at heart. I will kill them. I will break them in unsatisfying ways. I am a cold and unfeeling god. my goal is a baller narrative.

sometimes i will start with a trope because I know it's necessary for the role i need and go from there. Aura began when i was researching warhammer for a project and got thinking about what makes archetypical rogue traders what they are. they're often kinda larger than life and really call for hard to play tropes like magnificent bastard or chessmaster. those are my forte.

i have a secret i learned in acting that helps with writing these types of characters and that's the concept of "playing the great man." people with a very real authority, power, skill, etc, tend to extend the most relaxed persona. (not to speak about what's under the surface) they're comfortable in their position because they're not under mental duress to wield it. it's been practised. they needn't prove anything.

irreversible loss/betrayal of chosen family/deep connection. the fragmented nature of his earlier memories not only makes it difficult for him to navigate forming connections, but those bonds he would manage to form would be fiercely guarded and precious. the complete and utter loss of such a bond, esp thru deliberate betrayal or forces he could not have anticipated would shatter him. beyond sadness. it would be a re-experiencing of past abandonment and a confirmation of his deepest fears about connection.

unbearable suffering of someone he feels responsible for. he carries a hidden burden of responsibility of past failures, as he perceives them. he has lost everything and everyone catastrophically before. if someone specifically under his care, such as trusted staff or retinue he has formed a connection with were to suffer grievously or irrevocably, the guilt and visceral pain of their suffering and his failure to safeguard them would break him.

forced confrontation with core trauma. very obvious. but this would need to be done in a way that has stripped away his defenses and overwhelms his control. it'd be the violent shattering of his carefully constructed walls that would trigger the tears. less tears of sadness and more raw, unprocessed pain, fear and primal grief for lost parts of the self.

unconditional acceptance. this is the big one that may seem counterintuitive at first. the sheer vulnerability of being truly seen and accepted, perhaps for the first time, would likely overwhelm his defenses and trigger a release of years of pent-up longing and the grief of never having experienced such a thing. this is also just as damn unlikely as he projects the most unappealing, stoic, scientific persona in personal relationships so he can to avoid the very basis of connection. vulnerability is his core fear. a moment of unadulterated love or acceptance offered without expectation or judgment would be ruined by him sobbing. probably on the floor.

this would work out poorly for him if he didn't also have an unnatural gift of compulsion. like a persuasive whisper. people may find themselves agreeing with him even against their better judgment.

this combination of making people more prone to irrational behaviour and susceptible to manipulation as well as the very subtle distorted perceptions he inflicts on their reality (such as sound and colour perception) makes him miserable company. unless you manage to resist these influences through things like psyniscience, profound skepticism or discipline-- or he becomes aware enough to willfully draw himself back.

Even a figure as driven and controlled as Saren von Aurastor must eventually contend with the voidfarer's necessity for sleep, though for him, it seems less like rest and more like a state fraught with carefully managed contradictions.

Company is sometimes permitted within his opulent, often unnerving private quarters – entertained according to his mercurial whims and dismissed without ceremony once his interest wanes. However, a strict boundary remains: no one is permitted to be present when he finally succumbs to true unconsciousness. Vulnerability, even the simple vulnerability of sleep, is a state von Aurastor refuses to expose.

Yet, therein lies one of his deeper complexities. Those few within his inner circle who have survived his displeasure long enough might observe a strange, unacknowledged comfort he seems to find when a particularly trusted member of his retinue rests nearby – perhaps napping in view of his desk on a chaise, or asleep in an adjoining chamber – while he continues to work late into the ship's cycle. It's a proximity he would never solicit, perhaps not even consciously recognize, yet seems to quietly allow, hinting at a buried fear of total isolation or a need for guardianship he cannot admit.

He certainly possesses routines for sleep and waking, rituals that likely impose a semblance of order on the potential chaos within or without. Small comforts – a specific vintage of amasec, the tactile sensation of rearranging collected artifacts, the silent contemplation of a newly acquired star chart – are part of this, though their indulgence waxes and wanes with the volatile currents of his dark moods.

Contrary to what his sharp demeanor might suggest, immediately upon waking (assuming the sleep was deep and relatively untroubled) he can exhibit a rare, almost unsettling calm – perhaps the closest he comes to approachable neutrality. This placid surface, however, is exceptionally thin. Fatigue makes him dangerously irritable, his commands clipped, his patience non-existent.